Dover Beach

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I have something rather more difficult for you today. Matthew Arnold was an English poet who lived from 1822 to 1888. One of his most famous poems is “Dover Beach”. Dover is a town on the south coast of England. It is the place where you take a ferry to Calais in France. Arnold visited Dover in 1851 with his wife shortly after their wedding. He probably wrote the poem then. I shall read you only the last part of the poem. Matthew Arnold says that the world is not really full of dreams and beauty. It is a dark place where people fight meaningless battles. If we want there to be beauty and truth in the world, then we have to be true and loving to the people who are close to us. I have put some vocabulary notes on the podcast website.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.

“before us” means “in front of us” “Hath” is an old form of “has” “Neither joy, nor love, nor…” means “no joy, and no love, etc…” “Certitude” means “certainty” “Darkling” just means “dark” “Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight” means “all around us there are confused stories about fighting (struggle) and running away (flight)” – Arnold was probably thinking about a story from ancient Greek history of two armies fighting in confusion at night.

Click here for the full text of Dover Beach http://www.kamaz.demon.co.uk/library/arnold/weekpoem.html